It was a lovely summer day when it happened, a day when nothing could go wrong.
It was a perfect 28 degrees out, not a cloud to be seen. I was wearing my cut-offs, the ones that were previously cargo pants, and a deep navy blue shirt, my favorite color. The shirt was plain blue, the way I liked it. (My girlfriend gave it to me the Christmas before.) I had a ratty pair of RipZone skater shoes on, black with white bottoms. Creed was pounding through the headphones of my CD player. ('What if, what if, what if, what if I...?')
I was out for a run to get some exercise. I needed it badly, as I became very lazy over the winter and had grown a gut. My path took me past a strip mall, with a drug store. I decided to take a break there and get something to drink.
As I walked into the small store, I noticed that there was nobody at the front counter.
All of a sudden I heard "GET DOWN AND SHUT UP!" Before I knew what was
happening, I was forcefully pushed to the ground.
There were five of them, all with masks of dead presidents on. Kennedy and Lincoln were gagging the other customers, (I could only see two others, but I could hear more struggling beyond the other shelves and behind the check-out counter), and Bush & Nixon more were taking money out of the cash registers. Clinton was watching out the front windows to make sure that the police weren't coming yet. He was the only one who I saw with a handgun.
I must have landed on my CD player, because I couldn't hear any music despite the fact that I still had my headphones on. Just then, Kennedy ran over to me, and called out to Clinton; "I'm out of rope! What do I do with this one?".
He pointed at me. Well, not really pointed. He kicked me in my right kidney, and I
let out a loud 'whoof' sound. The response sounded like "whatever," but it wasn't clear
through the mask. He was still to busy watching the windows. With no other option coming
to mind, the robber simply grabbed my wrists, tucked them behind my back and held me on
the floor, his knees digging into my kidneys.
For a few seconds, nothing changed.
Bush and Nixon moved onto the jewelry, putting it into large canvas bags. Lincoln,
who had been gagging people had revealed that he too had a handgun, and was making sure
nobody tried to make a daring escape.
Then I could hear it.
It was coming from a distance, but it soon became clear. Police sirens. All five robbers panicked. Nixon and Bush, who were bagging the jewelry dropped the heavy canvas bags and pulled out guns. Bush was carrying an Uzi, and Nixon had a rifle. The robber who was holding me down quickly got up, digging his knees in even deeper for an instant. He stepped toward Clinton, and grabbed an AK-47 from the floor beside him. Clinton had holstered his handgun and had picked up another AK-47 in true terrorist style.
By this time, the parking lot of the strip-mall was full of police cars and vans. There was also an ambulance parked further back, just in case. It seemed that the criminals were prepared for this, because Clinton was holding a megaphone, ready to hear what the police had to say. I assumed then that he was the ringleader. Quickly, a muffled voice came over the police megaphone.
"Drop your weapons!"
The response was a sharp "NO" from Clinton.
"We know you have hostages. Release them and allow them to come to us safely!" Another futile attempt from the SWAT team to buy some time.
This time, though, the response was a single shot from a handgun. Then a scream. One of the presidents, probably Nixon, had shot a female hostage. Over the megaphone, Clinton calls; "We just killed a hostage, and another one will be killed in five minutes unless you let us go safely." All of the hostages gasped. (The president's never taped their mouths shut.) I heard another female cry. I think she was a cashier. All we could do was rely on the police.
I got up slowly and backed away from the window, in case the police decided to shoot through the glass. I moved relatively unnoticed, until Kennedy spun around from his position near the window and told me to stop. I did. And it couldn't have been at a better spot.
On the counter beside me laid one of the handguns that the baggers were carrying. I wondered why it was left laying there. It made no sense, but I took it as a stroke of good luck. Slowly, I reached to the counter, hoping nobody would notice. I wasn't sure what I would do with it, but I figured it might come in handy.
One minute had passed, four more to go until another one of us was shot.
I had finally reached the gun, and slowly, even slower than before, moved my hand behind my back to conceal the gun.
Over the police's megaphone, I could hear something like "give us some more time,
for the hostages' sake," but it was unclear, and hard to hear through all the crying and
whimpering coming from the other hostages.
Two minutes had passed.
Clinton, after giving some thought to the proposition said "ten more minutes from now, but no more!" A sigh of relief came from all of the hostages, including mine.
I started to wonder if there was a back door or window. I thought there wouldn't be,
because the robbers seemed pretty prepared for this. Then I thought again, why a drug
store? Why all of the guns? Why did they do it in the middle of the day? In a lot of ways,
they weren't very prepared at all. Maybe there WAS a back door! But I couldn't really go
and check, so I just stood there.
Seven minutes left.
I tried to see out the front window, and I noticed that there was a lot more vans. Maybe more SWAT members, or even some counter terrorist marines. I doubted that it was marine, there was no way that they could get here that fast.
The presidents were hiding behind counters, taking peeks outside every once in a
while. I could hear them talking amongst themselves, trying to figure out the next move.
More proof that they didn't plan this out very well at all. I hoped that there was a back
entrance and that this would end quickly without any more hostages killed.
Six minutes left.
Time was ticking. But there was hope. A soft bump resounded from the roof, and
everybody looked up. Without hesitating, Kennedy shot up through the roof. He dumped a
whole clip until he stopped, and Clinton slapped him. "You IDIOT! Killing one of them
won't help our case any. And we need to save our ammo. We are short . . . "
But it was too late.
The police used this distraction well. Before he could finish what he was saying, there was a SWAT team coming through the front and back entrances. There had to be fifty or more of them. Before a single shot was fired, the presidents were surrounded and forced onto their stomachs.
Some quickly moved onto the hostages and started untying them. One came to me
and asked me if I was okay. I told them that I had one of their guns on me, and pointed to it.
He took it away from me and told me that "you were VERY lucky they didn't see you, or you
would have been their next target." I was scared as it was, and that didn't help. But I was
relieved that it was over.
The unmasked robbers were handcuffed, and were being escorted out of the store into
the police vans. The lady who was shot was taken to the ambulance waiting at the back of
the parking lot. All of the other hostages, there were seven of us in all, were being questioned
about what happened. One of the police officers held up my CD player and asked who it
belonged to. "It's mine," I responded. He handed it to me and I checked it to see if it still
worked. No luck right away, but I saw that the battery case was open, and I found my battery
laying beside the checkout counter. I put it all back together, and 'Voila!', it worked. I could
listen to music again.
I spent many hours talking about the incident to the police. During my many conferences, I found out a lot of things about the whole situation.
The lady who was shot wasn't killed. She passed out when she was shot, and the shooter thought she was dead without checking. She only had non-life-threatening injuries.
The robbers involved were amateurs, as I suspected. They were all young, between 19 and 21 years of age, and they had no previous criminal record. They admitted that the robbery was an attempt to become members of the infamous 'Hells Angels' gang. Luckily they failed.
The 'bump' on the roof was a large sandbag, over 300 pounds, dropped onto the roof
from a neighboring building to create the distraction, and it worked perfectly. It took 43
SWAT members less than eight seconds to enter the store and surround the criminals.
"I'm going for a run." I yell out to my father working in the basement. It has been three months since the incident, and I still go running every other day. Nothing else has happened since. As I ran past the same drug store, I thought out loud, "I should stop in for a drink" . . .
